“You’re iT” was the theme of this year’s Cisco Live 2017 in Las Vegas, along with a Cisco superhero influence.

This being my fourth Cisco Live (CLUS) in person, I still managed to somehow miss the NetVet Status. That aside, the event still contained all of its awesomeness with or without the status. This year was full of really smart people from all over the world. People that actually make cool “stuff”. In the words of Peter Jones @Cisco, “I like to build stuff that gets used”.

This year was special for me on a few fronts.

First: The Opening & Closing Keynotes. This year, Chuck Robbins took to the stage right away. A shy departure from past keynotes where you would see SVP’s do an opening act so to speak. Then came the WOW factor when Tim Cook from Apple joined Chuck on stage. The audience was shocked, a surreal moment so to speak as CLUS attendees would never have thought someone like Tim would show up on stage. But, in true Apple fashion “shock and awe” is what they delivered. For more on this, head over to Tom Hollingsworth’s latest Blog.

Second: I was really looking forward to getting to a tone of sessions. One, in particular, was BRKARC-3467: Cisco Enterprise Silicon – Delivering Innovation for Advanced Routing and Switching. Hosted by Dave Zacks and Peter Jones. These guys are a great networking duo that brings a fresh look at whats happening behind the scenes at Cisco. You don’t often hear about how things are made and these two deliver in a style all their own.

I’d like to mention that I have known Dave and Peter for many years, and it’s always a pleasure to see them present. I sure hope Peter joins Dave on the Distinguished Engineer list soon. He’s got my vote!

Third: Customer Appreciation Events, A New Cisco Live Hat, Bruno Mars… Enough said! Let’s not forget fellow #hoser, Rob Boardman. Who single-handedly gave new life to TheCiscoHat and printed a whole body on a 3D printer. Who’s now known as Figus? Ingenuity at its finest.

Fourth: Friends.
What made this year standout more than ever was meeting up and travelling with a great bunch of geeks from CLUS 2016. That event was one of the best years on record for me as I met some great people.

A particular part of this year’s journey was getting a kick in the pants so to speak, from my best bud Brennan whom I met last year. He was instrumental in persuading me to make sure I made it to CLUS 2017 to get the gang back together again. “Thanks, Man”

“The biggest surprise though, would come from closer to home than expected, when I had the pleasure of meeting another fellow Canuck and Wifi guru @wirelessstew!I was blown away when Stew said that, not only did he know who I was from my (very new) online presence, but that he had hoped to meet me and find out more about me and my mobility experience. Stew would turn out to be the final, and likely most influential of the hosers group of Canadians (Stew, Steve, and myself), and honorary Canadians, Robb and Meru Mitch.”

It’s true. You “Enter As Strangers and Leave As Friends” That should be the slogan to CLUS 2018. Because that’s exactly what it is! No other event brings like-minded geeks together on such a large scale and makes it fun for everyone. It’s the everlasting bonds of friendship that last a lifetime.

See you all in Orlando 2018

PS:. Mitch, Steve & Mckim, if you are reading this let’s make sure the whole gang gets back together again. Never miss another Summer Camp, cause we all missed you.

RRM – a common term for Radio Resource Management – or the set of algorithms that set the channel and power level of your Access Points in an automated fashion. You’ve heard it all before, “RRM is broken, RRM picked the wrong channel, RRM hates me, RRM isn’t right for my network”. The reality is that RRM:

Isn’t dumb

Doesn’t hate you

Doesn’t love you

Doesn’t feel anything for that matter

As it turns out, RRM isn’t even smart. It has no feelings, passion, hate, love, real, imagined, or otherwise. In fact, RRM is just a series of algorithms that are built to do one thing – whatever you tell it to. RRM is a framework, meant to be built, adjusted, tweaked, and tuned. To be fair, there are two major topics that tend to give RRM a bad name and they are:

Day One of #WFD8Well, TechField Day did not disappoint! The morning started off running with newcomer Cambium Networks to the WFD Arena with Point to Multipoint technologies, leveraging GPS tech to enhance the experience. Followed up by the new CnPilot product line and the CnMaestro end to end management. Ahmed, Senior Director of Engineering, gives the delegates some real product meat and potatoes so to speak, to sink their teeth into.

After the lunch break, we saw the return of Cradlepoint, not seen since Networking Field Day 1. Ken Hosac (VP, Business Development & Dir Product Management) takes us through a brief “what we’ve been up to since then”. With corporate headquarters in Boise ID, “The New Cradlepoint” now employs a staff of 400 and offers a wide range of purpose-built solutions including a 4G-LTE Could-Managed Network Platform. Aside from the juggling of balls, big knifes, and chopping up fresh watermelon. The Cradlepoint team is one to keep a close eye on in this ever-changing LTE environment.

Also returning from a short hiatus is Ruckus Networks. GT Hill ‏@GTHill and team bring back that excitement and enthusiasm and detail that we’ve all missed hearing at WFD. Ruckus knocked it out of the park by impressing WFD Veteran Keith R. Parsons ‏@KeithRParsons, with a real live demo of MU-MIMO Clients. Ruckus never disappoints when it comes to deep dive. To quote delegate Chris Little “The only problem with @ruckuswireless presentations is that there is so much good info I never have time to take a lot of notes #WFD8“. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Day one session ended with Dave Wright of Ruckus Networks, taking the WFD arena by storm with the hot topic of the day LTE /LTE-U. The LTE discussion is something that I did not expect from any vendor. However, it was a well worth the price of admission.

Today’s sessions have really opened up many eyes to “Whats the next big thing?” LTE and WiFi coexistence perhaps? Well, folks its pretty much already here.

If you missed today’s sessions, never fear the good people at @TechFieldDay have got you covered.

Update: Stay Tuned for an update to Air rouge in-flight WiFi.

WiFi Entertainment @ 30,000+ FT Air Canada Rouge Style.

While on route to Wireless Field Day 7 #WFD7 in San Jose, I had the pleasure of boarding Air Canada’s new Air Canada rouge planes.

This hot new service has a cool new look, complete with a classic tail logo, an updated interior and lets not leave out the cool flight attendants uniforms. Once you enter the plane you are greeted by friendly upbeat staff who makes sure you are boarded safely and efficiently. One thing you will notice with this aircrew is they are very patient, something you don’t find too often on board aircrafts today.
Now to the best part of the flight, and that the onboard entertainment. “Wait, onboard entertainment? But I don’t see a screen on the seat in front of me.”

In the past, and still, today screens on headrests are the norm for many airlines. But today they are becoming very old school due to power, weight issues, and maintenance.

What if I don’t have a notebook, iPad, Smartphone etc.? Never fear Air Canada rouge has got you covered with Red Apple iPad Mini’s on standby to rent for a nominal fee.

How does it work? Well, it works in two ways.
You can connect via the Air Canada App for iOS / Android.

The other is via any browser on your notebook. Once connected to the Air Canada rouge WiFi you will be directed straight to the player. The image is super clear and never slows down or pauses.

What about those in-flight Announcements we all love? Well, here is a what it looks like. You don’t miss a moment of your favourite movie.

Now what really got my attention was the ease of connecting and wait for it— 5GHz 802.11n. Yes, folks, that’s right 5GHz on a plane. I know fellow WiFi Pioneer Devin Akin of Divergent Dynamics would be salivating right about now. Why you ask? With my WiFi tools at hand, I saw more clients connected to 5GHz, and that tells me that more devices are shifting away from the traditional 2.4GHz.

One suggestion I would like to make is that Air Canada rouge might want to use a single SSID name instead of the two they currently are broadcasting. For some travelers, this could cause confusion.

I have to hand it to the folks at Air Canada rouge they did a very nice job delivering in-flight entertainment via WiFi. I was super impressed.

So the next time you are on an Air Canada rouge flight, sit back have a coffee. Now if we could only get them to serve fresh movie popcorn.

I have been a user of both Air Magnet and Ekahau products and each has its own cool features and use cases. However I prefer Ekahau tool sets, and here is why.

The one key item that truly stands out here is the Wi-Fi Tools team @Ekahau.

With Jussi Kiviniemi’s ( @jussikiviniemi )appointment to Vice President of Wi-Fi Tools at Ekahau in June 2013 was one of the best things that has happened to WiFi tools at Ekahau.

He has shown a great interest and understanding in finding out what the boots on the ground need to do their job right the first time.

Not only does he market the product, but he is an actual user as well. Jussi knows how to survey / design. He also know’s whats needed to be done from a logistics point of view of making a great product and getting into the hands of every Wireless Engineer at a fast pace.

Jussi is always upfront / honest and listens to what’s griping us or why is that feature not working or can it be done.

This is a rare trait and it’s something you don’t find at every vendor.

Remember folks, it’s the people like Jussi that are behind the scenes that reach out to the community and get involved in making outstanding products that we can actually use.

I don’t often speak out like this publicly, but when I do, I do it because recognition is needed.

This will be my first visit to the big Aruba HQ and really looking forward to getting a behind the scenes look at this mobility company up close and see how they are focusing on #GENMOBILE and 802.11ac.

Oh and lets not forget a new comer to the wireless vendor arena Sean Rynearson; Aruba’s Chief Airhead. Over the past year I have been following Sean on twitter and on the Airhead community pages where he has been actively building up the Aruba Airhead’s.